Mark Pierzchala is serving his second term on the Rockville City Council. In his first term, he served as the chair of the Budget and Finance Task Force and as the Council representative on the Retirement Board and Rockville Economic Development, Inc.

Pierzchala is a statistician and systems analyst who works on major federal government surveys in the field of data collection. He has 28 years of experience through positions with the National Agricultural Statistics Service (USDA), Westat, and Mathematica Policy Research, Inc. He started his own company MMP Survey Services, LLC in 2010. In January 2011, he was named to a National Academy of Sciences expert panel on the redesign of the Consumer Expenditure Survey which helps determine the nation's Consumer Price Index.

He is married to Lesley Cross. They met in Swaziland, Southern Africa, when Pierzchala was with the U.S. Peace Corps and Lesley was working for the International Voluntary Service (IVS). They now live in College Gardens. They have two daughters, one of whom is a junior at Indiana University (studying in 2011/2012 at the University of Kent in Canterbury, England) while the other is a senior at Richard Montgomery.

He was president of the College Gardens Civic Association from 2004 to 2008, its secretary from 2000 to 2002, and a block captain before that. As president of the CGCA, he led the effort to transform a park into an award-winning park and Storm Water Management facility. In late 2008, he was elected president of the Town Center Action Team (TCAT), a position he held until his election to Rockville’s City Council in November 2009.

Pierzchala continues to push for budget discipline. He is also a neighborhood advocate and a strong environmentalist. He believes that ecologists and economists must work together towards long-term human sustainability. The Pierzchala/Cross household has four rain barrels, a rain garden and the family’s lot is a National Wildlife Habitat. 

Pierzchala is a year-round cyclist and walker who often uses these means to traverse the city. He taught himself to ride a unicycle in 2007, and in his spare time tackles the Washington Post Magazine Sunday crossword puzzles. He was the official first visitor to the Newseum in Washington, D.C., in April 2008.